Everybody's talking about Learning

A week or so ago I was encouraged to write an extended post about what I tweeted about, which was a surge in conversations related to Learning, Training and Education.

In talking with people from a variety of industries and market segments one thing that has struck me is that there seems to be a focus on education that I don't recall noticing in the past. These conversations are not exclusively from educators or professional trainers, but managers, directors and C level executives that are concerned with the skill level of their employees, the knowledge about product offerings and use with their customers and partners and providing expertise to their prospective clients in the form of webinars, white papers, and connections in a business focused social network.

We have been focusing on learning, both formal and informal, for some time here. You can watch some of the webinars we have sponsored to get a sense of our interest out there in the market. This emphasis on 'social learning' is growing (it seems exponentially) and there are so many great questions from people searching for solutions.

I just heard that Learning 2009 is going to be focusing a conference-within-conference on Social Learning, and a topic of much discussion at this week's Annual Conference of the USDLA was on how social media (of all types) plays into a blended learning agenda for organizations.

Other evidence of the surge in interest in this area is the monthly virtual events that are being produced by Dr. Tony Karrer's Corporate Learning Trends initiative - you can sign up for the June online (free) conference here. The one this month was extremely informative that was hosted by Jay Cross, you can read his take on the experience here.

Why all the interest?

My take is that in these challenging economic times we have to maximise the resources we have available to us, and the most expensive one is our people. Making sure that they have the information to do their jobs is a primary concern, and it is accelerated by the fact that so many companies are working with reduced staffs, so people are having to do things that they have never done before. They are relying on their networks of connections to help them solve problems - but as those networks have collapsed, it becomes important to build new ones. That seems to be why they are calling us.

Education is important, finding a way to make it most effective for the money spent is a critical part of the strategic discussion. There are a lot of resources out there for you, I especially like this site eLearningLearning. It's very helpful.